


Like a Slow Growing Seed

by rachelanhedonia



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Family, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Other, Peter Parker Calls Tony Stark "Dad", Protective Tony Stark, Spider-Man: Homecoming (Movie), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelanhedonia/pseuds/rachelanhedonia
Summary: When Tony Stark met the teen behind the Spiderman mask, he feels an unexpected sense of fatherly protectiveness for the kid. But, all he does is bottle these paternal feelings until Peter Parker slowly opens them up.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111





	1. Discovering Spiderman

**Tony**

It was almost four in the morning but I was wide awake in my workshop, as usual. I took a sip of my favorite strong black coffee as I scrolled through holograms that showed the plans I’ve come up for the new upgrades on my Iron Man suit. I was satisfied with what I saw so I told my AI assistant, Friday, to close all the holograms. 

“Okay boss,” Friday complied and all the blue glowing lights disappeared on my desk, leaving just my usual mess of random bolts, screws, and a single wrench strewn across the large white table. There was nothing left for me to do so I decided to turn on my Stark tablet and look aimlessly at internet websites. 

I found myself on Youtube where I saw a bunch of similar videos featured on the homepage. They all showed a masked guy dressed in what looked like a blue and red colored onesie. I clicked on one video that had 1.5 million views. The video was titled: Queen’s neighborhood hero saves the day. 

The video began with a loud screech from a black car that was moving uncontrollably fast towards a busy intersection. It was about to hit a pedestrian and a public bus. Suddenly, the blue and red dressed guy comes in from nowhere using some sort of web-like material to swing quickly. He catches the black car right before it could crash unto the bus. He jumps high up, unharmed, and everyone around was safe. Those who witnessed what happened cheered for the blue and red wearing guy. 

I’m quite impressed but just a tiny bit doubtful about the authenticity of the videos. However, something tells me that these couldn’t be fake. I want to find out more about the guy so I called out to Friday to do some research on this masked Queen’s hero. 

“Friday, can you look up more information on this guy who’s all over Youtube?”’ 

“Right away sir,” Friday answered and a minute later a holographic screen pops up on my desk that showed a compilation of pictures, videos and news articles. 

“Boss, this person seems to be called Spiderman,” Friday informed.

“Huh, that’s an interesting name. Thanks Fri,” I said and skimmed through the information Friday collected. None of the material tells me the true identity of “Spiderman”. I guess he wants to keep his identity hidden which I could genuinely understand. Back when I was still beginning the “hero” life, I also didn’t want the world to know that I’m Iron Man. 

The Avengers could use someone like this guy on our team. I’m definitely going to keep tabs on this “Spiderman” person. But in the meantime, I can come up with some initial plans for a suit for him…

  


  


_A few months later_

“36 hours? Jeez,” I say to Natasha Romanov. 

I’m seated while she’s standing right beside me. Both of us are in a conference room where the U.N. Secretary of State, General Ross, had just left us and demanded that Steve Roger’s and the rest of the Avengers that sided with him be brought in within 36 hours. With Sam, his super soldier friend Bucky, Clint, and Wanda, on Cap’s side, I don’t think I’ll be able to round them up in time for the deadline General Ross gave me even with Agent Romanov’s help. 

“We’re seriously understaffed,” she states. 

“It’d be great if we had a Hulk right about now. Any shot?” I glance up to her but I wasn’t really expecting her to have any news about Bruce Banner. 

She smiles and shakes her head slightly, “you really think he’d be on our side?” 

“No,” I say and a thought quickly occurred to me. I needed someone else on our team who had the capabilities of fighting against super powered people and that “Spiderman” guy from Queen’s who I discovered on Youtube a couple of months ago is definitely the guy that I needed. 

“I have an idea,” Romanov says, I feel her staring at me intently. I looked up to face her and answer, “me too, where’s yours?” 

“Downstairs. Where’s yours?” she says. She tilts her head skeptically but I just give her a small smirk. 

Despite the big worry and great stress that I am in right now, I felt quite excited to meet this Spiderman guy. All I needed was to find out his true identity and, with Friday’s advanced capabilities, I’d be able to find out in less than an hour. I say goodbye to Natasha and left the conference room. 

I headed straight to my private jet and immediately put Friday to work on discovering who’s behind the Spiderman mask. I got myself comfortably seated on the jet. The thing flies itself so all I needed was to input the destination: New York. I had to do something important while travelling which was to make a suit for Spiderman. I brought up the files that I worked on a few months back which contained my plans for the Spiderman suit. My jet had all the right materials needed to get the suit physically made. 

About 40 minutes into the flight, Friday informs me that she found out who Spiderman really is, “Spiderman is a teenager named Peter Parker.” 

The Spider-MAN is actually a kid and not a man? 

“How old is he?” I asked. 

“He’s fourteen, sir.” 

That changes a lot of things. He’s very young yet he’s already putting himself in danger by helping other people and I find that admirable. Though, I’m starting to doubt whether I should really recruit Spiderman on my team. But, I’m desperate and I don’t want the whole Cap situation to go worse than it already is. I don’t have any other options but maybe I can make a compromise? I decided to add more safety features on the suit that would add extra protection for the kid who would be wearing it. I just hope that it would be enough to protect him.


	2. The kid behind the mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark recruits Spiderman on his team.

**Tony**

I arrived in Queens, New York and found myself in front of an apartment building that looked slightly worn-out. I didn’t have the patience or the time to find an appropriate place to park my Audi so I just parked it right in front of the entrance. I headed in and went straight to the floor where the Parker’s lived.

I knocked on the wooden door and heard a woman’s voice answering from the other side. “Who is it?” she said. An attractive 30 to 40 something brunette opened the door.

As soon as she realized who was knocking, her expression immediately shifted from slight annoyance to extreme surprise. I gave her my best Tony Stark smile and greeted her, “good afternoon, I’m here for Mr. Peter Parker.”

“Tony Stark? Why are you here? I mean, come in! Please come inside,” she opened the door wider and led me into the apartment.

I stepped inside and looked around. It was a decent sized apartment, with muted green colored walls and an open floor plan. The woman walked towards the kitchen as she talked, “I’m May Parker, Peter’s aunt. Would you like something to eat or drink while we wait for him?”

“No, thank you,” I politely declined. “I’m here to talk to Mr. Peter Parker about his grant from Stark Industries,” I lied.

“Although, I gotta say you look amazing to be someone’s aunt,” I couldn’t stop myself from adding; I guess some of my old playboy ways were still there. She laughed and reached for something from the oven.

“Oh I insist,” she says and brings a tray with a plate full of brown bread and two mugs filled with coffee to the living area. She sets it down on the dark wooden coffee table and takes a seat on the green couch. “Please have a seat Mr. Tony Stark and have some bread with coffee” she pats the space on the couch beside her and smiles at me.

I didn’t want to be rude so I sat down and grabbed a piece. It looked like it was walnut date loaf but, when I took a bite, it tasted nothing like it. I slowly chewed and pretended to enjoy the food. May Parker smiles as she munches on a piece of loaf as well and tells me Peter will be coming home any minute now.

As if right on cue, the apartment door opened and a teenage boy wearing earphones walked inside, not noticing that I was there. The boy had brown hair, light skin, and an average height. He oddly reminds me of myself when I was younger.

“Hey May,” he said. I thought his voice would sound gruff but he sounded bright and cheerful; not quite what I expected Spiderman to be.

“Hey, how was school today?” Peter’s aunt replied to him. Peter set down his things on the dining table and walked casually into the kitchen.

“It was okay. This crazy car parked outside,” he says while walking but he stops in his tracks when he sees me seated next to his aunt. He removed his earphones and points at me questioningly.

I pretended to be fascinated by the piece of bread that I was holding and then looked at him, “oh, Mr. Parker.”

“Um wha- what are you doing…” the boy says, he was clearly surprised and very confused. He crossed his arms, probably thinking that pointing is rude or maybe the kid’s just nervous.

“Hey, I’m- I’m Peter,” he stumbles on his words. “Tony,” I answered quickly.

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s about time we met,” I tell him. “You’ve been getting my emails, right?” I winked, hoping he would get the message that he should just go with whatever I was saying.

“Yeah? Yeah,” the kid pretended like he knew what I was talking about.

“Regarding the…” Peter continued but his aunt interrupted him. “You didn’t even tell me about the grant,” she says.

“About the grant,” the boy says like he knew it the entire time.

“The September Foundation, remember when you applied?” I say to Peter.

“Yeah,” he answers half-heartedly.

“I approved! So now we’re in business,” I gave him a _look_.

“But, you didn’t tell me anything! What’s up with that? You keeping secrets from me now?” May Parker expresses.

I took a sip of the coffee while she talked, hoping it would help me swallow the walnut date loaf but, unfortunately, it doesn’t.

“I just- I just know how much you love surprises so I thought I would let you know…” Peter trailed off. “Anyway, what did I apply for?” the kid suddenly asks me.

“That’s what I’m here to hash out,” I say simply.

“Okay, hash it out. Okay,” Peter says and I could see he didn’t quite believe me.

“It’s so hard for me to believe that she’s someone’s aunt,” I say while looking at Peter and giving him a toothless smile.

“Yeah, well, we come in all shapes and sizes, you know?” she laughs for the second time today at my playboy remarks.

“This walnut date load is exceptional,” I lie again.

“Let me just stop you there,” Peter interrupts. “Is this grant got money involved or whatever? No?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty well funded. Look who you’re talking to,” I point at myself. “Can I have five minutes with him?” I ask Peter’s aunt.

“Sure,” she replies. Peter and I head to his bedroom. I immediately locked the door, in case his aunt hottie might come in and learn something that she shouldn’t know. I spot a trashcan and straightaway spit the awful piece of bread that’s been in my mouth for the past ten minutes.

“As walnut date loaves go, that wasn’t so bad,” I say another lie. I looked around the small bedroom. It was messy, as expected from a teenage boy. There was a twin-size bed, and some old computers with other gadgets that looked like they were thrown out, picked up by some scavenger, and got re-assembled on top of a desk on the other side of the room.

“Whoa, what have we here? Retro tech huh?” I say as I continued to look. I’m genuinely fascinated that the boy has all these stuff. It seems like he knows how to build computers from scrap materials which reminded me of the time when I was kidnapped and had to work on limited supplies to make my first Iron Man suit. On the other hand, I was also looking for a blue and red onesie that was most likely hidden somewhere in the room.

“Thrift store? Salvation army?” I inquired.

“Uh, the garbage actually” Peter answers.

“You’re a dumpster diver?”

“Yeah, I was- anyway, look, um… I definitely did not apply for your grant,” the boy tells me squarely.

“Uh ah, me first,” I stop him. “Quick question of the rhetorical variety,” I grab my phone from my pocket and show him holographic videos of Spiderman that I got from Youtube. “That’s you right?” I probed.

“Um no, wha- what do you? What do you mean?” Peter crosses his arms as he struggles with his words. I noticed that he seems to cross his arms in front of him when he’s nervous.

“Yeah, look at you go,” I ignore his denial. I play the very first video that I saw him in which was when he stopped a car from hitting a bus.

“Wow, nice catch! 3,000 pounds, 40 miles an hour? That’s not easy, you got mad skills.” I placed the holographic device on the desk.

“That’s all on Youtube though, right? That’s where you found that?” Peter says as he walks past me and towards the desk where I placed the device. He turned it off easily which mildly surprised me because not a lot of people know how to utilize my advanced tech.

“Because you know that’s all fake, it’s all done on the computer” the teenager bluffs. “It’s like that video, what is it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” I pretended to agree with him.

“Exactly,” Peter says.

I noticed an air vent where I’m guessing is where he hides his Spiderman costume. I grabbed a wooden stick that was conveniently located right below the air vent, and pushed the metal barrier. Immediately, blue and red clothing attached to a rope fell from above.

“Oh, what have we here?” I say feigning surprise.

The kid quickly jumps up to grab the clothing from the rope and throws it amongst his clothing. He covers it with his body by trying to casually lean on the wall that was close to the makeshift closet.

“Uh…” he awkwardly mumbles as he crosses his arms and lets out a long breath. If I was just here to recruit the boy to be part of the Avengers without the Captain America problem, I would probably be laughing right now at this boy’s antics.

But I went straight to business, “so, you’re the Spider-ling. Crime-fighting spider? You’re Spider-boy?” I was half-teasing while half-trying to get the truth out of him.

Peter was exasperated and finally gave in, “Spiderman,” he says and looks at me.

“Not in that onesie, you’re not.”

“It’s not a onesie,” Peter utters defensively. “I don’t believe this. I was having a really good day today, you know Mr. Stark,” the kid walks back to his desk because there’s no point in hiding the pile of clothes that was his Spiderman outfit.

“I didn’t miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there and”, he grabs a pen and slams it lightly on a notebook, “algrebra test, nailed it.”

“Who else knows? Anybody?” I ask taking the red and blue onesie into my hands.

He shakes his head and quietly answers, “nobody.”

“Not even your unusually attractive aunt?” I sit down on the chair next to the desk as I examined the piece of clothing that Spiderman wears to fight crime and help people.

“No! No! If she knew, she would freak out and if she freaks out, I freak out.”

I find a small container that I assumed was the webbing that Peter uses as Spiderman. “You know what I think is really cool? This webbing,” I say throwing the thing at him. He caught it without even looking; another thing to note is that his reflexes are incredibly fast.

“That tensile strength is off the charts, who manufactured that?” I continued.

“I did,” he says and throws the container into the makeshift closet.

“Climbing walls, how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?”

“It’s a long story, I was…” he says but I interrupt him when I find a pair of black goggles and I just had the urge to tease the kid.

“Lordy! Can you even see in these? Woah! I’m blind” I tease him, trying the goggles on.

“Yes! Yes, I can see in those, okay?” the kid quickly removes all the pieces of Spiderman’s costume from me. I held in a smile, the kid is endearing.

“It’s just that when whatever happened, happened, it’s like my senses have been dialed to 11. There’s way too much input, so they just kinda help me focus.”

“You’re in dire need of an upgrade; systemic, top-to-bottom, hundred-point restoration. That’s why I’m here,” I tell him.

He sits on his bed and I ask him something that I’ve been wondering since I found out his true identity, “why are you doing this? I gotta know what’s your MO? What gets you out of that twin bed in the morning?”

“Because,” he starts, mumbles, then stops and sighs. He seemed frustrated and now I wanted to understand even more the reason why he was doing this.

“Because I’ve been me my whole life and I’ve had these powers for six months,” the boy continues. I give him an encouraging nod to go on and hum in agreement. I could understand what the kid is meaning to say.

“I read books, I build computers, and yeah, I would love to play football, but I couldn’t then so I shouldn’t now.”

“Sure cause you’re different,” I add in, showing him that I understood exactly what he meant. This kid is too pure, too good. He knows that the abilities he gained shouldn’t be used to his advantage. He understands that the powers that he has entails a weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

“Exactly, but I can’t tell anybody that so I’m not…” he stops and I could see him thinking. Something significant must have happened after he got his Spider abilities.

“When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

When he said that, it hit me hard; harder than the punch that the Winter Soldier gave to me; thus, the black eye that I’m sporting right now. This kid, Peter Parker, has already developed a deep sense of responsibility and _hero’s guilt_ that I can’t imagine dealing with at such a young age. I felt a profound desire to protect him.

I’ve doubted myself every time I make a decision but this time, I’ve never been so sure about this choice to take him in. When the right time comes, Peter Parker will be one of the best heroes this world will ever see. For now, I need him to help me catch Cap but, above that, I must ensure that he doesn’t get harmed when we face off with Rogers and the rest of the Avengers on his side.

“Have you ever been to Germany?”


	3. Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony starts to realize that he feels a paternal concern for Peter but he doesn't want to admit it.

**Tony**

“Hey guys! Have you ever seen that really old movie Empire Strikes Back?” Spiderman says as he swings away from the grasp of Giant Man.

We’re in the airport in Germany, fighting off Steve Rogers and the rest of the “rogue Avengers” and it’s becoming clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to take them in time for the deadline that General Ross gave to me.

“Jesus, Tony how old is this guy?” Rhodey says thru the comms.

“I don’t know, I didn’t carbon date him. He’s on the young side,” I say. Was Peter Parker 14 or 15 or 16? My mind is way too focused on other more pressing matters than Peter’s age right now.

“You know that part where they’re on the snow planet with the walking thingies?” Spiderman continues to say as he webs up Giant Man’s legs.

The kid seems to have a good plan in mind. “Maybe the kid’s onto something,” I tell Rhodey.

Rhodey was on the same page as me, “high now Tony, go high!”

Rhodey and I fly up to punch Giant Guy right on the face, successfully knocking him down. Peter yells “yes! That was awesome!” I could see him giving us a thumbs up but unfortunately he doesn’t notice the hand of Giant Man smacking him which sends him hurtling towards a bunch of hard wooden cargo boxes a couple of feet away.

A sense of panic rushes through me, making me immediately fly towards where Peter crashed. Worried that he might be seriously hurt, I landed and retracted my suit’s helmet so I could see the kid better.

“Kid, you all right?” I touch him gently, afraid that he might have injured or broken bones. His mask was removed halfway through his head, revealing the lower part of his face. He reacts defensively from my touch, probably thinking that I was from the opposing side.

I grab his arm so he couldn’t hit me, the kid was very strong. I try to calm him down by saying, “same side! Guess who? Hi, it’s me.”

When he finally realizes it was me, he sighs. “Hey man,” he says, relieved. I was relieved too, seeing that he wasn’t badly injured in any way.

“That was scary,” he says breathlessly. The kid looked tired and just a little bit beaten up from the fight so I decided it was time to bench him, for his safety and also, for my sanity.

“You’re done, all right?” I tell him.

“What? I’m good! I’m fine,” he protests.

“You did a good job, stay down” I say as Peter continues to protest.

“No it’s good, I gotta get him back,” he objects but I absolutely cannot let him.

“You’re going home or I’ll call Aunt May! You’re done.” I say and leave him on the ground.

I send a short text to Happy Hogan to pick Peter up from the airport to take him away from the fight while I flew away. I wanted to tend to the kid’s needs more, to check if he really was without any big injuries but Cap was getting away.

“Okay, I’m done. I’m done,” I hear Peter breathlessly say thru the comms. Good, the kid is finally listening to me.

“Happy, can you give us a moment?” I tell Happy Hogan who was in the driver’s seat while Peter and I were in the backseat.

I never let anyone drive me to places but I wanted to sit next to Peter and talk to him all the way to his home. We’re now in New York, taking Peter Parker back after the fight at the airport and all the other events of the “Civil War” between Captain America and me.

I’m still furious and hurt at Steve Rogers for what he did to me. I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive him anytime soon. Plus, there are still a lot of things that have not yet been resolved. Scott Lang a.k.a. Antman and Clint Barton are both on house arrest while the rest of the “rogue Avengers” are on the run. Frankly, I think it’s better that way rather than them being imprisoned in The Raft.

Thinking about what happened pains me because, even if I hate to admit it, the Avengers have _broken up_. I haven’t heard from Thor for a long while now while Bruce Banner has been MIA for years. The only one left to live in the Avenger’s compound is Vision but I’m pretty sure he’s going to leave to be with Wanda and then there’s really no one left anymore. The compound will be a big empty white building with no life, no meaning.

“Do you want me to leave the car?” Happy turns to look at me.

“Why don’t you grab Peter’s case out of the trunk?” I tell him. Happy mumbles something incomprehensible but he still complies and gets out of the car.

I wanted to speak to Peter alone. There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him, like how I was proud of the good fight that he put up in Germany despite being up against experienced combatants and if he needs me he can just tell me anytime but I’m Tony Stark and I just don’t know how to say those words and express how I feel for the kid.

What do I feel for the kid? Is this how a teacher feels towards his best student? I don’t think so. What I feel is a great sense of protectiveness for him. I want to do everything I can to shield him from the world. But I know that I can’t do that because the kid’s a hero and he will always be in harm’s way. What I can do to protect him is to monitor his whereabouts and give him the suit. Happy can keep a close watch on him while I can still continue my work at Stark Industries plus being Iron Man and, also, the suit will have everything he needs as the neighborhood hero of Queens; I’m going to do just that.

“You can keep the suit kid.”

“I can keep the suit?” Peter stares at me in disbelief as he slowly puts down the phone that he’s been holding up to take our “alibi video” for his Aunt May about the fake Stark internship.

“Yes, we were just talking about it,” I tell him as I put my blue tinted sunglasses on.

I cleared my throat and continue, “do me a favor though, Happy’s kind of your point guy on this. Don’t stress him out. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ve seen his cardiogram, all right?”

“Yes,” Peter answers, still surprised about what I told him. I don’t know why he would think that he couldn’t keep the suit though. I made it for _him_ , to help him be a better hero and to protect him.

“Don’t do anything I would do, and definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. There’s a little gray area in there and that’s where you operate,” I say making a small space between my thumb and index finger to emphasize my point.

“Wait, does that mean that I’m an Avenger?” Peter asks expectantly.

“No,” I answer almost immediately. I don’t want the kid to be part of the Avengers just yet, not when the team is in shambles as of the moment.

Happy knocks on the glass window from the outside of the car with Peter’s luggage in hand, “this it?”

“Seventh floor,” I tell Happy. The kid probably needs a lot of rest after the events in Germany so I wanted Happy to carry his luggage up to Peter’s apartment but Peter declines.

“I can take that, you don’t have to,” Peter says to Happy.

“You’ll take it? Thank you,” Happy said and puts the luggage down.

I couldn’t hide a small smile from forming on my lips. There’s just something about Peter that draws me in.

Peter turns to me and asks, “so when’s our next _retreat_ , you know?” He makes air quotes when he says the words “retreat”.

“What? Next mission?”

“Yeah the mission, missions.”

“We’ll call you,” I tell him. I don’t think there will be any missions anytime soon.

“Do you have my numbers?” he asks preparing to show me his number from his phone.

“No I mean, we’ll call _you._ Like someone will call you, alright?” I say and for some odd reason I reach out to Peter. I feel him wrap his arms around me in an embrace but I pretended to reach out for the door handle instead.

“That’s not a hug, I’m just grabbing the door for you. We’re not there yet,” I say and open the door for him but I know it’s a stupid way of opening a door for someone.

I shift away without looking at him, feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward as I let him leave the car. I couldn’t just let him leave without saying a word so I say a quick but loud “bye!”

Happy gets in the car and speeds away as I look outside the car window and watch the dark streets of New York pass by, stuck in my thoughts. I’m starting to get an idea about what I feel about Peter: paternal love. But, I’m afraid of admitting it even in my thoughts. I’m scared because I don’t want to mess up Peter like how my father messed me up and I have no right to consider myself as Peter’s father. 

The "hug" felt _nice_ though.


	4. Better than a Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter hasn't heard from Tony Stark since the day they came back from Germany. Peter is starting to get worried that he might have been forgotten by Mr. Stark but something he doesn't expect happens.

**Peter**

It’s been a month since Mr. Stark introduced himself to me and took me to Germany to help him fight Captain America and the rest of the Avengers that sided with him. Almost every day, I gave updates to Happy Hogan who Mr. Stark told me was my “point man”. Although, I don’t exactly know what he meant by that but I’m guessing he means that I can contact him through Happy.

Patrolling around Queens has been so much better thanks to the suit that Mr. Stark gave me. It’s a hundred times more comfortable than the homemade suit that I used to wear. It even has its own AI, Karen, who helps me through all the different programs that were integrated into the suit plus I also talk to her whenever I got a little bit bored.

I am starting to get just a tiny bit impatient to hear news from Mr. Stark about a new mission. Helping people and stopping small crimes from happening in Queens is great but I feel like I can do so much more. I want to be just like Tony Stark, one of the best heroes the world has; saving the world from large evil threats like Loki and Ultron.

He’s my favorite Avenger because he’s a genius and he’s selfless. I hear and read from a lot of people that Iron Man isn’t the type of hero who would be willing to sacrifice his own life to save others but I completely disagree with them. I was 10 years old but I can vividly remember that day when that alien army, led by Loki, was trying to take over New York. Iron Man was the one who saved the city from total destruction when he flew into the wormhole to direct the missile away from the city. Actually even before that, Iron Man was my favorite superhero but after that day, I liked him even more.

It’s almost 9, which is my curfew, so I started my way home. I patrol right after school ends at 2:45pm up until around 8:30pm but I still don’t feel that tired when my patrolling ends. I take my suit off behind some dumpsters near the apartment building where I live with my Aunt May and stuff it in my backpack.

I get home right on time and I see my aunt seated infront of the tv watching some random show. “Hi May,” I greet her as I enter our apartment.

“Hey Peter, I’m sorry I ate dinner ahead of you. I was real hungry but I left dinner in the fridge, you can just heat it up.”

“Thanks May,” I say and head for the kitchen.

I open the fridge to find a big plate of pesto pasta that looks suspiciously too green. My Aunt May isn’t exactly the best cook but she tries. I grab the plate and heat it up in the microwave. Even though May gives me large servings every meal, I never feel completely full when I finish. I could probably eat five times as much as an average teenager but I don’t tell her because May doesn’t know that I got bit by a mutated spider and now I’m Spiderman.

I finished my dinner, do the dishes and take a quick shower before I headed to bed. As I lay on my bed, I check my phone for any messages from Happy but as usual, he hasn’t replied to any of my texts. I hope that I hear from Happy or Mr. Stark soon or else I’m going to start getting paranoid and think that they forgot about me. I put my phone on the bedside table and turn off the lights. It’s just another day without any news from Mr. Stark.

It’s Friday afternoon and school has just ended. I have the entire weekend free from homework and school projects because I did it all ahead of time to make room for a full weekend of patrolling as Spiderman. I wanted to help as many people as I could so that I can somehow get Mr. Stark’s attention and he’ll make me do another mission with him.

I was about to put on my suit when my phone rang. It was from someone who wasn’t in my contacts. I put my suit back into my backpack, in case someone might see me, and I answer the call.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Parker?” a familiar voice says.

“Mr. Stark! Wha- why are you calling me? I mean, it’s great to finally hear from you! Where’s the mission going to be? I hope it’s out of the country! Going to Germany was real-,” I rambled but Mr. Stark cut me.

“Where are you kid?” he asks.

“Um, I’m in an alleyway beside the building that I live in,” I answer.

“Great, I’ll pick you up in 5 minutes. End call,” he says and the phone call ends.

He’s picking me up in 5 minutes! Does this mean I’m going on a mission again? This is awesome! I hurriedly get my suit on and place my regular clothes into my backpack. I hide my backpack in its usual spot behind the dumpster and secure it with some webbing. I waited for a couple of minutes then I hear a sound of a sports car stopping in front of the building.

I leave the alley and hastily made my way to the car. I see Mr. Stark in the driver’s seat, wearing sunglasses and an expensive looking stylish suit. He spots me making my way towards him and he lowered the car window.

“Why are you in the suit?” he asks.

I’m confused, “aren’t you taking me on a mission?”

“No,” he sighs and opens the car door. “Get in before anyone sees you,” he says and I quickly stepped into the car.

He speeds through the streets of Queens and I noticed that we were heading for upstate New York. I wanted to ask him where he was taking me but he looked annoyed so I just kept my mouth shut during the entire car ride.

We arrived at our destination and I couldn’t believe where I was. We were in the Avengers headquarters! The compound was surrounded by tall trees with a big green open field that was a nice contrast against the crisp white building located on the north side of the compound. The building had the big “A” Avengers logo on one side while the rest of it was surrounded by floor to ceiling glass windows. Mr. Stark got out of the car while I stared in awe at what I was seeing.

“Get out of the car Spiderman, don’t wanna come in?” I hear Mr. Stark say.

His voice brought me back to reality and I exit the car to follow him inside to the lobby. It was empty except for a couple of large gray sofas grouped together on one side and a black reception counter in the middle. A grand glass staircase that leads up to the second floor occupied the rest of the space in the lobby. I also noticed that nobody was here. Where is everyone?

Mr. Stark walked towards one of the three elevators and I walked a little more briskly to keep up with him. The elevator immediately opened and we both stepped inside. I saw that there were no buttons on the elevator to pick the floor you wanted to go to.

“Hey Friday, take us to my lab please,” Mr. Stark says.

A pleasant woman’s voice answers, “welcome back boss, I’ll take you there right away” and the elevator started going up.

“That’s so cool!” I couldn’t stop myself from saying. I see Mr. Stark smile at my remark and I was smiling even harder than I already was.

“Hello Peter Parker, it’s nice to finally meet you,” the AI says through the hidden speakers.

“Uh hi- hi! It’s nice to meet you too!” I say feeling just a little awkward even though I’m used to talking to Karen who is also an AI. It’s just a bit different with Mr. Stark here with me. I feel self-conscious like I have to keep myself composed and cool whenever he’s around. I want to impress him in every way possible.

The elevator stops and the doors open revealing a huge open space full of various equipment, large holographic monitors, and a glass display of all the Iron Man suits. I felt like I was going to die of happiness as I got out of the elevator and looked around the laboratory. This is what heaven looks like for me!

“Your lab looks amazing Mr. Stark!”

“Of course it does kid,” he chuckles.

I continued to look around, basically bouncing from pure excitement. I couldn’t even dream that I would be able to see Tony Stark’s laboratory in person but here I am! All the Iron Man suits! The advanced tech! Everything looked so cool!

“So kid, clearly I’m not taking you on a mission,” Mr. Stark starts.

“I think this is even better than taking me out on a mission Mr. Stark! I can’t believe I’m in your laboratory!”

“I’m glad you think that way because you’re going to be spending the weekend with me here.”

“What? For real?! Awesome! Um, but what about my Aunt May? Does she know that I’ll be staying with you?”

“Yeah, I already notified her and told her I’m taking you to another Stark Internship retreat” Mr. Stark replies.

“That’s absolutely great Mr. Stark!”

“Please Peter, you can call me Tony.”

“Oh okay Mr. Sta- I mean Tony,” I say awkwardly. The two of us suddenly became quiet and I just felt even more awkward.

Tony clears his throat and says, “so Peter, I’ve got the entire weekend planned for us. This afternoon, I’m just going to show you around the lab and the compound, let you get settled and rest up since you’ve been busy with school and your after school patrolling.”

Mr. Stark knows about my daily patrols? I thought my messages were just seen and ignored but I guess I was wrong. It makes me feel stupidly happy to know that Mr. Stark knows all about my Spiderman activities.

“Then tomorrow until Sunday, we can get working on upgrades on your Spiderman suit and have some test runs on whatever we come up with, sound good?”

“Yes!”

“Why don’t you change into something else before I give you the grand tour?”

“Um, I didn’t bring any clothes with me,” I say taking off my mask.

“That’s not a problem,” Tony says and heads towards the elevator. “Come with me Pete.”

I follow him and soon we arrive at a floor with a long hallway with doors on each side that looked like it was a floor on a 5 star hotel. The hallway was carpeted so when we walked our steps didn’t make any sounds. I continued to follow Tony and he stops in front of the door at the very end of the hallway. He opens it and we both step inside.

The room was probably as big as the entire apartment that May and I live in. It had floor to ceiling windows on its entire right side while the rest of the walls were painted a nice shade of blue that I like which was similar to the color of my Spiderman suit. A king sized bed that faced the windows was surrounded by a dozen pillows with a very cozy looking white comforter.

On another side of the room is a large wooden desk with a high-tech computer and a black leather chair. Two doors are on the opposite end of the large desk that I’m guessing one of them leads to a bathroom but the other one I don’t know what it’s for.

“Welcome to your room Peter, pretty nice right?”

“It’s beyond nice Mr. Stark! I mean Tony!”

“The door on the left side of the desk is the bathroom while the right one leads to the closet where you’ll find plenty of comfortable clothes that will fit you. I’ll let you get changed and I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

Before I could say anything, Tony leaves and I was alone in the beautiful room. My room! I can’t believe this! I’m running out of words and adjectives to describe how I’m feeling today. This is literally the best day ever!

I do a back flip and land right on the huge bed. I feel like a little kid again bouncing up and down on the comfortable bed. I jumped out of the bed before I could break it and I opened the door on the right side of the desk that Tony says leads to a closet. I’m hoping I can get changed out of my suit since it can feel a little bit stuffy sometimes to always be in the Spiderman suit.

I twisted the doorknob open and for the I-don’t-know-how-many-times-today I was in shock with what I was seeing. This wasn’t the regular closet that I expected it to be. It was a room full of clothes that were arranged like an expensive store rather than a closet. There were probably a hundred pieces of clothing in the room; shoes, shirts, pants, formal suits, belts, and even neck ties.

I didn’t know what clothes to pick. I just wanted to wear a comfortable t-shirt, a hoodie and ordinary jeans. I spot a corner in the room where I saw a lot of different t-shirts that were totally my type, the ones that had nerdy graphic designs on it. I picked a red one that had the periodic table on it and grabbed a pair of blue jeans that I found on another corner in the room.

I turned my attention at the entire wall that was dedicated solely for shoes. There were rows and rows of shelves with different kinds of shoes. I was getting overwhelmed by all the choices. I probably stared at the hundred pairs of shoes in front of me for a solid three minutes before I just decided to go with a pair of black Converse shoes.

I noticed that there was an empty space in between the shelves where all the color coordinated dress shirts were hanged. Curious, I touched a small button that caught my eye. The once empty space was now filled with various holograms and a perfect space to put in my Spiderman suit. I placed my Spiderman suit that I tried to neatly fold into the space where I’m supposing is for the suit. It fits perfectly and a blue hologram pops out with a notification that says: suit cleaning in progress. In just a minute the notification changes to: suit cleaning complete. This is beyond amazing.

I looked around the closet a little bit more because everything looked so fascinating before I left the room and headed down to the lobby where Mr. Stark told me to meet. As I rode the elevator down, I tried to pinch myself. Maybe this is all just a dream. I yell, “ow!” when I feel the sting on my arm from my own doing.

Nope, I am definitely not dreaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed this chapter! I really had fun writing about Peter's room, especially his closet!


	5. The Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's probably one the best weekends that both Peter and Tony had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those who commented about the wrong tag that I used, I already removed it!

**Tony**

After Captain America freed everybody from being imprisoned in The Raft, I had to deal with General Ross and the rest of the mess that was left from our “Civil War”. I had to be in countless meetings with the U.N. and I also had to revise The Sokovia Accords a hundred times to ensure that the final declaration would not hinder the operations of The Avengers.

It took me nearly a month to smooth things out and I had no time to personally check up on Peter Parker. I wanted to meet him at least once a week so he could get upgrades on his suit, regularly catch up with him and ask if he needed help with anything, but my schedule was too cramped. There was no way for me to free up time because the UN and The Sokovia Accords were too monumentally important.

I also had to help my best friend Rhodey literally get back up on his feet after the injury that paralyzed both his legs that resulted from the Civil War. I went with him to his physical therapy sessions as much as I could and I created a prosthetic that allowed his legs almost completely normal functioning. After he was able to recover and was able to walk again, he decided to rest with his family at his hometown, leaving no one in the Avengers compound in upstate New York.

During those weeks though, I did get updates about Peter from my friend and Head of Security, Happy Hogan. Whenever I had time, I would read through the texts that Peter had sent to Happy and I would also look at the daily logs on his Spiderman suit. Watching Peter’s logs patrolling around Queens sort of became my stress reliever in the midst of the stress that the aftermath of the Civil War brought to me.

When everything was settled, I finally had the time to meet Peter. I wanted to spend a whole weekend with him but first, I had to make sure that he would be comfortable during his stay with me. Even though there was the Avengers Tower in the middle of New York, I wanted to take Peter to the Avengers Compound because he probably hasn’t seen it yet and I didn’t want the billion-dollar thing to rot away with no one using it.

I had the largest room in the Avengers quarters renovated and prepared for Peter. I also made sure that there was a walk-in closet complete with all the clothes he needed. I figured the kid must like watching movies so I also got the mini theatre and movie room renovated as well.

Lastly, I noticed that Peter seemed to always feel hungry because he’s constantly snacking while he’s on patrol and he would make passing comments about feeling very hungry to Karen. These led me to the conclusion that Peter must have the same metabolism as Steve Rogers which means he needs to eat twice to five times as much as a regular person so I made sure that the pantry at the compound was fully stocked.

When everything was ready, I contacted Peter’s aunt and asked her permission for Peter’s “Stark Industries Weekend Retreat”. She immediately answered yes and all I needed was to pick Peter up. I drove to Queens as soon as I could because I just couldn’t wait to see the kid again.

I got myself seated on one of the large couches in the lobby of the compound while I waited for Peter to finish getting dressed out of his Spiderman suit. I don’t know why but I felt like I owed him an explanation why I didn’t contact him at all for nearly two months. I don’t want him to feel like I would only talk to him if I needed him to fight super soldiers with me. I want him to think of me as sort of a “mentor” in his journey as a superhero. Someone he can call if he ever needed any help even if it isn’t Spiderman related.

I tapped my foot against the white tiled floor as I waited. The kid was taking quite longer than I expected for a teenage boy to get dressed. Did he get lost or something? The compound’s interior layout can be a little confusing. I decided to ask Friday what was taking the kid so long.

“Mr. Parker is currently in his closet staring at shoes, boss” Friday answers.

When I hear what the kid’s been up to, I couldn’t help but smile. He can take his time looking at shoes if he wants to. I decided to just use my Starkpad and read a couple of emails while I waited for Peter. A few minutes later I hear the elevator doors open and a wide grinned Peter comes out.

I get up and tease him, “you seemed to enjoy your room Spiderling, I’ve been waiting here for almost 15 minutes.”

He laughs bashfully and tells me, “sorry to keep you waiting Tony, I just got a little overwhelmed by the closet.”

I smile and grandly gesture him to come closer. “Come on Pete, let me show you around this little building that will be your home for the next couple of days.”

“Since you’ve already seen the lobby, let’s go to the other places on the first floor.” I lead him to the hallway that connects the main lobby to a smaller more intimate area that’s more like a large living room than a lobby.

“This is our private waiting area, where the team would hang out while we waited for briefings and conference calls from Shield and whatever government agency that wanted to talk to us, it’s more convenient than waiting upstairs in our private living quarters since it’s right next to the conference room.”

The room was covered in dark wooden walls with leather sofas and armchairs situated in the middle. Adjacent to the room and separated only by clear a glass wall was the empty white conference room.

“Why is the conference room empty? Like isn’t there supposed to be a big table and chairs and stuff?” Peter asks, genuinely curious.

“We have holographic conference meetings, wanna see how it looks like? Friday, play the recording of the meeting we had with General Ross a couple of months ago.”

In a blink of an eye, the room glows with blue light and a life sized holographic long table surrounded by chairs materializes. The chairs become filled with people that used to be the ones I trusted the most but are now the ones who have hurt me. There was Nat, Steve, and the others who were with me when General Ross first conversed with us about the Sokovia accords.

The recording of our meeting with Ross plays and a surge of awful memories start to fill my head. Rhodey falling uncontrollably from the sky. The video recording of the Winter Soldier killing my parents. Cap piercing his shield straight into my arc reactor as I gasp breathlessly in pain. Me, alone in the Compound that was once filled with my teammates, my _family_.

Peter must have noticed my expression changing because he suddenly commands Friday, “turn off the recording Friday, please.”

I could feel Peter staring at me but I couldn’t look at his face. I walked out of the room as if nothing was wrong and continued on the tour.

“Next I’ll show you the training room, it’s the perfect place to practice your Spider stunts” I say as Peter silently follows me closely with an unreadable expression on his face.

After more than an hour, I finished showing Peter around the Compound. The sun was starting to set and it was about time for dinner. I decided to order five large pizzas for our meal. Peter was hesitant to pick out five different pizza flavors saying that five is too much for the two of us but he eventually gave in and freely chose whatever he liked.

Peter and I were in the living room of the Avenger’s quarters while we waited for the pizza to arrive. The tv was on playing a baseball game that the two of us didn’t really care about. I figured it was time to tell him why I didn’t contact him at all for two months.

“Hey Pete,” I started. “Um, I just wanted to tell you that I didn’t call you or anything for two months cause I was busy dealing with all the matters of the Accords. I hope you didn’t think I was forgetting about you.”

Peter stares at me wide eyed as if he was shocked, like I read his mind. Did he really think that I forgot about him?

“Oh, it’s uh nothing Mr. Stark, I mean Tony! It’s totally understandable! It’s not like I’m important or anything, I mean, yeah it’s fine,” Peter rambles as he looks away from me. I could see him starting to get red on his cheeks.

“From now on, we’ll both meet up at least once week. That all right with you?”

“Yes! That would be awesome!” Peter says with the happiest smile on his face.

God, what is it with this kid’s smile that is so infectious? I couldn’t help but smile back. I ruffled his messy brown hair and leaned back on the couch, feeling more at ease. Peter was a little startled from my sudden touch but then relaxed, and it felt like all the awkwardness and the questions between the two of us had been cleared up and dissipated.

Friday informs us that the pizza arrived. We ate dinner infront of the tv, sharing a comfortable easy flowing conversation about what’s been going on in Peter’s life since I last saw him. He talked animatedly without even realizing he ate all five boxes of pizza while I ate just three slices. He felt embarrassed for eating so much but I reassured him that I know he needs to eat a lot because of his increased metabolism. I felt full, not from the food but from listening to Peter’s stories.

As we cleaned up the mess we made in the living room, I noticed Peter was trying to stop himself from yawning but he was failing. “I know you’ve had a busy week Pete, why don’t you head to bed and I’ll be the one to finish cleaning.”

“No, Tony! Let me help you!” he objects and quickly stacks the pizza boxes in one hand while wiping the table with another.

“Done!” he says triumphantly and we were finished with cleaning.

“Goodnight Pete, see you tomorrow” I say as we headed to our separate rooms.

“Goodnight dad!” Peter accidentally says. “I mean Tony!” he corrects himself and runs into his room.

I felt like my heart was going to explode from my chest.

The next two days were filled with productive and non-productive activities. We worked on upgrades for his suit and his webshooters. I found out some parts of the suit had micro tears because Peter’s been handwashing it to keep it clean. I gave him a similar mechanism to the one in his closet that was in a form of a metal briefcase that allowed the suit to get cleaned and charged at the same time.

Peter also got to try out his new webshooters in the training room sparring against Ironman suits, much to his delight. Then during the late afternoon until the evening, we watched movies in the movie room. I let Peter pick out whatever he wanted. The weekend flew by quickly and it was already time for Peter to get back home.

I drove him home since Happy’s currently at Rhodey’s, delivering some new stuff for his leg prosthetic.

“This was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had Tony, thank you” Peter says. He looks at me with the most grateful sincere look that I've never seen anyone give to me before he stepped out of the car. 

“Bye Tony!” Peter waves as he disappears into the apartment building.

What did I do right to deserve this kid?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fanfiction about Tony Stark and Peter Parker. I wanted to write a story that showed the slow but growing love that Tony and Peter share as father and son. I hope you'll enjoy it. Please leave a comment or kudos if you liked it!


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